Bryant presented his "Education Works" plan before teachers, students and school leaders Friday at Northwest Rankin High School.

"Mississippi children are struggling and we have a tremendous opportunity to build a better future by investing ourselves in improving our education system," Bryant said. "In the last legislative session, we focused on strengthening Mississippi's business climate in order to spur job creation. This year, we must be serious about improving our education system."

Bryant said his agenda was created with help from education leaders, teachers and researchers. The plan aims to improve literacy skills, develop and reward teacher quality, continuing early childhood education efforts, increasing school choice and improving college and career readiness, according to a news release.

The governor said he wants to stop the practice of passing children to the next grade level before they are prepared.

"Data shows that 46 percent of third-graders and 78 percent of fourth-graders in Mississippi are not proficient in reading. The problem only gets worse as students pass to the next grade, and by eighth grade, a student who couldn't read proficiently in third-grade is four times more likely to drop out of school than his peers," Bryant said. "Our children deserve better. My plan includes third and seventh-grade promotions policies that require students to be proficient in reading and math. We must sharpen our focus on building literacy skills, and my proposal, as well as my executive budget recommendation, calls for implementing rigorous, persistent literacy training in our schools."

Under the plan, Bryant seeks to attract top Mississippi students to teaching positions and to reward high-performing teachers with salary increases. He proposes increasing entrance standards for teaching programs and offering scholarships to top high school and college students who want to pursue a career in education.

"We must have the best and brightest of Mississippi teaching our students," Bryant said. "I continue to believe that implementing a performance-based compensation model to reward our most effective teachers will serve our students and our educators by recognizing the efforts that drive success."

Bryan also said he wants to involve and empower parents in the education of their students.

"So many children in this state are trapped in schools that are not meeting their needs. Parents deserve the right to seek better opportunities for their children, and my proposals put value on school choice," Bryant said. "Not only should we endeavor to pass a workable public charter school bill to give our children one more opportunity to succeed, we must also give parents the option to request their children be transferred to another school through implementation of statewide open enrollment policies. My agenda further empowers parents by designating privately-funded opportunity scholarships for low-income families in D and F schools. Parents can use these programs to send their child to a school that better meets their needs."